Ok, I had this huge thing typed up explaining my experiences and observations but it became a novel with nothing really useful to say.

The TLDR is that for the early heroic modes which I've experienced, I am no longer a proponent of trading stamina for heavy mastery. Raid damage is just too high. And the combination of melee and magic damage on tanks is severe as well. Omntiron and CoW are two obvious examples. Permafrost followed by a melee swing is serious damage. Nature boss after an ultimate is serious damage, even with cooldowns running. Omntitron is just LOADED with massive magic damage.

I regemmed all of my gear and traded about 3% block for ~6k more unbuffed health (I forgot to check before and after stamina values). And I have one more piece to do this on netting about another 1k health.

In addition to the high base damage levels, gear also becomes a bit of an issue. I've noticed that as you work on getting your 4 tier pieces, mastery just doesn't exist at the same levels anymore. Many later upgrades are void of high mastery levels.

My basic strategy at the moment is to just use mastery trinkets when mitigation is called for, otherwise stamina trinkets. And gem stamina in blue and stam hybrids everywhere else. Basically, I'm now a fan of prioritizing stamina for heroic content. What are your experiences? Are they completely different from mine?

I think both trinkets are critical (stamina and the one you linked). There are some fights where that 1 minute cooldown is intensely useful. I am a few days away from having it. If I did, I guarantee you I'd use it on at least 3 fights that we're currently working on.

One of the nice benefits to gemming all your gear with the heavier stamina approach is that you can actually AFFORD to use that mastery trinket as a magic reduction cooldown and still have the necessary stamina for everything else.

I haven't found the need for the extra HP. I'm on exactly the other side of the fence on this, with literally every piece of gear gemmed solid mastery minus what I need for the metagem. My in-game combat rating coverage is 99.something with raid buffs/avoidance trinkets and I've found it to be worth it. Raid buffed I sit at maybe 178k hp, and I don't think the extra stamina has ever hindered our progression.

I've found more often than not that death comes from unblocked hits. If you can push unblocked hits off the table, I see that as being worth as much hit points as you block for. If you trade less HP than the average block on a progression boss, it feels like a gain.

"Safiyas, if you don't stop screwing up I'm going to replace you with someone that has a Y chromosome." -LaethalasNikachelle on the Jewelcrafting Nerf- "Called my boyfriend up and told him. Think I ruined his day. :s"

Faro wrote:I haven't found the need for the extra HP. I'm on exactly the other side of the fence on this, with literally every piece of gear gemmed solid mastery minus what I need for the metagem. My in-game combat rating coverage is 99.something with raid buffs/avoidance trinkets and I've found it to be worth it. Raid buffed I sit at maybe 178k hp, and I don't think the extra stamina has ever hindered our progression.

I've found more often than not that death comes from unblocked hits. If you can push unblocked hits off the table, I see that as being worth as much hit points as you block for. If you trade less HP than the average block on a progression boss, it feels like a gain.

Are you running 10 or 25 man? And do you have logs? I'm curious to see the sort of damage you take on fights.

I armory'd you and saw that you have done Chimaeron and Halfus (in heroic mode). Chimaeron seems logical towards mastery-based gearing, as I understand that to be a predominantly melee-based boss fight. Halfus possibly, depending if you're taking Halfus or the drakes.

What will happen when you start fighting bosses with insane amounts of magic damage? Cho'gall, Onyxia/Nefarian, Omni Council just to name a few.

I had some issues on Chimaeron 25H last night with 186 health and dying during Feud with the double attack following first stack of Break. It was fixed by doubling up Divine Protection with a Hand of Sacrifice with the Hand of Sacrifice overlapping into the Double Attack where I then popped my big cooldown. I also regemmed to have more stamina (196k). In this particular case, I think the cooldown overlapping was all that was needed (not the regemming) but it was very frustrating. I'm going to check the logs later and see if something about absorbs was different.

Basically I would not block both double attack hits and the first one brought me to 9992 health. Yes, 8 freaking short.

inthedrops wrote:I had some issues on Chimaeron 25H last night with 186 health and dying during Feud with the double attack<snip>Basically I would not block both double attack hits and the first one brought me to 9992 health. Yes, 8 freaking short.

The Bile-O-Tron is offline during Feud, so 10k health no longer matters.

Naw, Throb is actually correct. But I was merging the story of multiple deaths in one post. I was dying during Feud (bot offline) and that 9998 health was another incident where I died while the bot was online.

I reviewed the logs and see a few more mistakes on my part. So I would like to retract my prior post about needing more health. I didn't always have my strong cooldown going through that double attack like I thought I was doing.

Faro wrote:I haven't found the need for the extra HP. I'm on exactly the other side of the fence on this, with literally every piece of gear gemmed solid mastery minus what I need for the metagem. My in-game combat rating coverage is 99.something with raid buffs/avoidance trinkets and I've found it to be worth it. Raid buffed I sit at maybe 178k hp, and I don't think the extra stamina has ever hindered our progression.

I've found more often than not that death comes from unblocked hits. If you can push unblocked hits off the table, I see that as being worth as much hit points as you block for. If you trade less HP than the average block on a progression boss, it feels like a gain.

Are you running 10 or 25 man? And do you have logs? I'm curious to see the sort of damage you take on fights.

I armory'd you and saw that you have done Chimaeron and Halfus (in heroic mode). Chimaeron seems logical towards mastery-based gearing, as I understand that to be a predominantly melee-based boss fight. Halfus possibly, depending if you're taking Halfus or the drakes.

What will happen when you start fighting bosses with insane amounts of magic damage? Cho'gall, Onyxia/Nefarian, Omni Council just to name a few.

We run both 10 and 25. Our Heroic Chim kill was 10m, Halfus was 25m, and we've done all the normal modes in both.

Mastery gearing 100% got us our h:chimaeron kill in 10m. It's not possible for me to be at full hp with 3 healers every feud without going oom, so I don't see stamina as a realistic gearing possibility.

With Heroic Halfus I tank the whelps+time warden and we off tank time during furious roar.

Both of these fights I'm not block capped, but I'm at around 94-95/102.4 raid buffed. I need the raw hp from vial to live through the knock down, and I need the on-use from the trinket during Chim's enrage phase.

Edit: as for the magic damage question, we've pulled all the non-end bosses heroic and I think the only fight where you can't get away with going full mastery would be Nef. A lightning nova push+shadow breath without a cd would kill you, but honestly that's probably the exact same gearing pure stamina. We've done omnitron, none of the magic damage is killer. I'm not sure what changes about Heroic: Cho, but as of right now I'm the add runner since that's the "harder" job and I can't imagine there ever being a situation where I'd get gibbed in that role.

Edit2: Funny story about whelp tanking last night. When the whelps initially aggro, I always take 10 unavoided/mitigated hits. I'm always standing directly in front of them, and they always hit me in the face. Anybody have any suggestions as to what's going on here.

"Safiyas, if you don't stop screwing up I'm going to replace you with someone that has a Y chromosome." -LaethalasNikachelle on the Jewelcrafting Nerf- "Called my boyfriend up and told him. Think I ruined his day. :s"

Faro wrote:Edit2: Funny story about whelp tanking last night. When the whelps initially aggro, I always take 10 unavoided/mitigated hits. I'm always standing directly in front of them, and they always hit me in the face. Anybody have any suggestions as to what's going on here.

Funny you should mention that, I noticed the exact same thing happening to me. Last week we switched healing assignments and the shaman put on me was not prepared for it... Long story short I always pull them out first, consecrate, pull out time warden, blow AD or DP, then get the whelps, then time warden. Pulling them with a cd makes all that damage somewhat trivial, so long as your healer isn't afk.

Also, those whelps take me back to heroic anub, with my shield taking about 2% durability for every minute tanking them all. Certainly not as bad as heroic anub where I would repair after every attempt, but still somewhat frustrating

Faro wrote:Edit2: Funny story about whelp tanking last night. When the whelps initially aggro, I always take 10 unavoided/mitigated hits. I'm always standing directly in front of them, and they always hit me in the face. Anybody have any suggestions as to what's going on here.

Funny you should mention that, I noticed the exact same thing happening to me. Last week we switched healing assignments and the shaman put on me was not prepared for it... Long story short I always pull them out first, consecrate, pull out time warden, blow AD or DP, then get the whelps, then time warden. Pulling them with a cd makes all that damage somewhat trivial, so long as your healer isn't afk.

Also, those whelps take me back to heroic anub, with my shield taking about 2% durability for every minute tanking them all. Certainly not as bad as heroic anub where I would repair after every attempt, but still somewhat frustrating

I open with divine protection and vial and hope for the best. I actually had my shield break from ~80% one attempt because the whelps didn't die until like...3 minutes in. I had to blow a cd, get to a repair bot and pray.

Edit for relevance: We spent most of the night working on heroic maloriak 25. Only death I ever had in black phase was an attempt where I stood in overlapping sludges thinking it was just one that I'd be out of quickly. Slimes swing for about 20k each with ~7k block. You're never in danger of dieing since you could kite the adds into eternity as long as you hold threat. Abberations are an entirely different story. Feels like no amount of gearing will make up for getting clipped 9 adds without a cd, but there's a case to be made for both stamina and mastery gearing.

And I get Time Warden misdirected to me, cuz I'm spoiled.

"Safiyas, if you don't stop screwing up I'm going to replace you with someone that has a Y chromosome." -LaethalasNikachelle on the Jewelcrafting Nerf- "Called my boyfriend up and told him. Think I ruined his day. :s"

What's your advice for gearing for add tanking on Maloriak? Not sure if we're trying with one or two add tanks yet. I'm curious is extreme avoidance/block is the right way to go here. I did this on regular and my damage intake was a complete joke with the adds. I don't presume it will translate to heroic, so thought I'd ask.

Keep in mind, it's become fairly clear over the last week or so that I do have one slightly weak tank healer.

I went with the gear I'm wearing on armory right now, considering changing out my vial for block cap. The damage intake on 3/6 adds is a joke but 9 you have to kite and I feel that's the same for both Stamina and Mastery gearing.

"Safiyas, if you don't stop screwing up I'm going to replace you with someone that has a Y chromosome." -LaethalasNikachelle on the Jewelcrafting Nerf- "Called my boyfriend up and told him. Think I ruined his day. :s"

Honestly, when we did it, I felt that it made next to no difference as if they hit me I'd be dead very, very fast, since we kited them round. Until the last phase, it felt as if I might as well go gem my gear with full strength. I opted for stamina in case I took a flash freeze and I was just put on gcd and therefore had to wait a second with bubble or if I took the flame breath or even for phase 3 - since the adds do some bleed kinda-thing and the main-tank often died meaning I could well eat a fire cone while picking the boss up. Make sure you have PoJ for it, though. I also recorded my point of view of our kill, if it helps: